[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 25 (Monday, February 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1131-S1133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               VENEZUELA

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I come here this evening to speak on the 
issue of human rights in Venezuela and developments today in regard to 
all these issues. It is part of the broader effort my office has 
undertaken for a while now. It is the hashtag ``Expression NOT 
Oppression'' campaign.
  Every week we come here to the floor of the Senate when in session 
and highlight political prisoners and dissidents whose lives are being 
destroyed by oppressive regimes around the world.
  Today, I will be highlighting the case of Leopoldo Lopez, a 
Venezuelan opposition leader who, 3 years ago this week, led peaceful 
demonstrations against the regime of Nicolas Maduro, and he was thrown 
in jail for it.
  I am honored that this week we will be visited here in Washington by 
Lilian Tintori, Leopoldo's wife and the mother of their two children. 
She is an incredibly brave woman who does not rest as she continues 
advocating for her husband's release and the release of all political 
prisoners and continues to fight for a free and democratic Venezuela. 
So I want to recognize her as she visits Washington this week to ask 
for our government's continued help.
  Before I get into Leopoldo's case, I want to take a few moments to 
talk about what is happening in our own Western Hemisphere and in 
Venezuela specifically.
  For decades, the Western Hemisphere has been neglected by our foreign 
policy--sadly, by administrations of both

[[Page S1132]]

parties. As we see all over the world, when America fails to lead and 
engage on the world stage, bad actors emerge and they grow emboldened, 
while our enemies and adversaries rush to fill the void. We see 
democracy under assault and with it, an assault on the universal, God-
given rights and dignity of citizens throughout this region.
  Despite the one-sided concessions of the past 2 years, Castro's Cuba 
remains as repressive as ever. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega ran for and 
won an unconstitutional third term, with his wife as the Vice 
President. Of course, we are growing increasingly familiar with the 
economic, social, and political disaster in Venezuela, which I shall 
elaborate on shortly.
  By the way, I am also concerned about the impact of ongoing, rampant 
corruption in the region, which will undermine democratic governments 
and their institutions.
  There is another major issue plaguing the region and threatening the 
security of the United States, and that is rising insecurity stemming 
from narcoterrorist drug cartels. In recent years, we have seen the 
worst of them--the FARC in Colombia--brought to their knees and to the 
negotiating table by the Colombian Government's efforts. But Mexico and 
other countries throughout Central America continue to be threatened by 
organizations such as these.
  A third problem in the region is the lack of economic opportunity. It 
is simply in America's interest to have more prosperous neighbors, 
people to sell to and trade with. Ultimately, if people can't earn 
enough money to feed their families and live in a safe neighborhood, 
they will either pick up and leave by any means necessary, including 
illegal immigration, or they will join drug gangs.
  I know that too often there is a tendency to overlook what is 
happening in our own region. Some might say: I have enough problems 
here at home to worry about what is going on in other countries. But I 
hope that everyone remembers that all of this I have described and am 
about to talk about ultimately has direct consequences on us here in 
the United States and on our people. When you have a breakdown in any 
of these areas, people in these countries look to leave. The first 
place they often look to is the freest and the most prosperous country 
in the region--in the world--the United States of America. Because it 
also happens to be relatively close, that creates immigration pressures 
on our borders and on our communities.
  When economies aren't functioning, it means American workers and 
entrepreneurs have fewer customers abroad to sell products and services 
to. And when you have all of this instability, vacuums are created that 
foreign enemies or adversaries like North Korea, Iran, China, and 
Russia seek to fill, not to mention terrorist organizations. It allows 
for the rise of tyrants and authoritarians like Castro and Chavez, 
Maduro, Ortega, Morales, Correa, and others.
  Today in Venezuela, all these problems have come together to bring 
this country--one of the richest countries in the world in terms of 
resources--to the verge of becoming a failed state, and today the 
people of that proud country are living a nightmare.
  Not that long ago, Venezuela was a vibrant democracy. It had strong 
democratic and independent institutions. It had free and fair 
elections. But today in Venezuela, democracy and human rights are under 
assault. The country is ruled by an incompetent strongman--a criminal, 
a human rights abuser, someone who has perverted every independent 
institution in the country, and is incompetent, whether it is the 
judiciary, the military, intelligence, or the media--in order to 
entrench himself and his cronies in power.
  Here in the United States, when we have disagreements, people use 
different rules at their disposal to prolong debates and slow things 
down. We are aware of that here in the Senate. In Venezuela, when 
people have disagreements, especially with the government, they just 
try to stop debates completely. For example, after the opposition party 
in Venezuela miraculously won the last legislative election--despite 
every effort by the Maduro government to steal that election--the 
Venezuelan state police then blocked the new members of the Parliament 
from going to work.
  Imagine for a moment 2, 4 years ago, 2012, when President Obama was 
elected, if he had ordered--in 2014, when Republicans took control of 
the Senate, imagine if at that time the President had ordered the 
police to stand at the door of the Chamber and not allow Senators from 
the Republican Party to enter the Chamber. That is what happened in 
Venezuela. Then that same government in Venezuela ordered their hacks 
on the kangaroo supreme court to invalidate laws passed by the National 
Assembly to free political prisoners.
  Venezuela also has a drug cartel problem. In fact, there are 
officials in the highest levels of the Venezuelan Government who have 
even been linked to drug cartels. Among them is the former head of the 
National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, and the Vice President of that 
country, Tareck El Aissami. I will talk about him in a moment.
  We also learned last week--and I came to the floor to discuss the CNN 
report confirming what my office had been gathering for a while. By the 
way, that is going to be airing tonight on CNN, the second part of that 
series. We learned that organized crime syndicates in Venezuela, with 
the tacit approval of the Government of Venezuela, of Maduro, are 
running counterfeit passport rings, with counterfeit Venezuelan 
passports being sold to terrorists and to individuals with links to 
terrorism.
  But it is Venezuela's economy that is perhaps the saddest story of 
all. The failures of Chavez-style socialism in Venezuela led to misery 
for people there of all ages. Not that long ago, Venezuela was a 
relatively rich economy. It is a rich country blessed with oil and 
other natural resources, and it has long had a well-educated population 
and vibrant middle class. But under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, 
Venezuela has been crumbling. Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, has 
become the murder capital of the world. It is one of the most dangerous 
cities on the planet. Venezuela is defaulting on its loans. In fact, it 
will owe about $6 billion in April. They will not be able to make those 
payments. In Venezuela, the grocery shelves are bare--a rich country, 
and they are completely bare. Everyday products, like toilet paper, are 
scarce, as is food. The people of Venezuela are literary starving, so 
much so that a recent Miami Herald article from last week detailed how 
people have turned to hunting and eating flamingos for food. By now, 
many of us have seen the images of newborn babies being put in 
cardboard boxes at the hospital because these hospitals can no longer 
afford cribs.
  So it comes as no surprise that the Venezuelan people, living in 
misery like this--robbed of their dignity and aspiring for more than 
this disaster--would choose to speak up. They began to do so in full 
force 3 years ago this week. That is when Venezuelan students took to 
the streets to protest the violence and the scarcity of basic 
necessities due to the negligent, incompetent policies enacted by the 
Maduro regime. What began as a student protest soon became something 
bigger. It became a movement.

  Government thugs responded to this movement with violence, and the 
peaceful demonstrations came to look like a combat zone: 43 people 
dead, 600 people injured, and approximately 3,400 people detained. 
Among those detained was Leopoldo Lopez, a Venezuelan opposition 
leader. The government of Maduro outrageously accused him of being 
responsible for all of this violence, and they threw him in jail and he 
has been there ever since. It has been about 1,100 days. To put that 
number into context, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was held 
prisoner by the Iranian regime for 544 days. The Iranian hostage crisis 
of 1979 lasted 444 days. In September 2015, Leopoldo Lopez was 
sentenced to 13 years, 9 months, 7 days, and 12 hours for his 
participation in the protests. In jail he has suffered physical and 
psychological torture.
  He is the father of two young children, and he is married to Lilian 
Tintori. He was the mayor of Chacao, and the leader of Popular Will or 
Voluntad Popular political party. He will be a critical part of 
building a

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freer, more democratic, and more prosperous Venezuela, but for now, 
sadly, he languishes in prison.
  He is not alone either. In Venezuela today, there are at least 108 
political prisoners. Like Leopoldo, they each have a lot to contribute 
to make Venezuela a better place, but the Venezuelan Government is 
robbing them of their freedom, and it is robbing their families of the 
memories every child and spouse deserves to create with their father, 
husband, and loved ones.
  All these political prisoners should be free. I have encouraged, 
publicly and privately, our new Secretary of State and the 
administration to make the freedom of these political prisoners their 
cause and to make it a priority. I know we are trying to work through 
our top-level Cabinet nominations here in the Senate, but we need to 
get people in place in other key roles throughout the administration; 
for example, our next Ambassador to the Organization of American 
States, where the United States needs to recommit to making its voice 
heard in that forum as a voice for democracy and human rights and for 
holding Venezuela's regime accountable for violations of the Inter-
American Democratic Charter.
  I am also pleased that today the administration announced a new round 
of sanctions against a key Venezuelan official. Specifically, 
Venezuela's Executive Vice President Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, 
El Aissami, as I talked about him earlier, and Venezuelan national 
Samark Jose Lopez Bello were sanctioned under the Kingpin Act for 
international narcotics trafficking.
  Aissami's primary front man was Samark Jose Lopez Bello, whom I just 
discussed. He was designated for providing material assistance, 
financial support or goods and services, and support of international 
narcotics trafficking activities and acting for or on behalf of El 
Aissami. Five U.S. companies owned or controlled by Lopez Bello have 
been blocked as part of today's action.
  All five of them are located in my home State of Florida. In fact, 
all five of them have mailing addresses in South Florida where I live. 
Among the properties seized: A U.S.-registered aircraft with the tail 
number N200VR. It has been identified as block property owned or 
controlled by PSA Holdings, LLC, controlled by Lopez Bello and by El 
Aissami, with funds that were able to get by conducting prohibited 
transactions dealing with drug traffickers.
  It is an outrage that the Vice President of a country in our 
hemisphere not only is a narcotrafficker but is also in the business of 
selling passports and travel documents to people with links to 
terrorism.
  For years now, I have been talking about how Venezuelan regime 
officials were committing crimes in Venezuela, stealing from the people 
of Venezuela, and then they spend their riches living in the lap of 
luxury in my hometown of Miami. These announcements today further 
confirmed how true this is and the extent to which corrupt regime 
officials have been allowed to freely travel and prance around free 
U.S. soil with impunity.
  I am hopeful this is only the beginning of the sanctions today, to 
make sure the Maduro regime feels pressured to cease its illicit 
activities, to free all of its political prisoners, to tolerate 
dissent, and respect the will of the Venezuelan people who voted to 
abandon the disastrous past of Chavez and Maduro.
  I am hopeful this is only the beginning of making sure the Maduro 
regime feels pressure to cease its illicit activities and everything it 
is doing that has placed Venezuela on this disastrous path.
  We in this country are a blessed people, to have a vibrant democracy 
that serves as an example to the world. With those blessings come the 
responsibility of speaking out when we see others yearning to be free 
but repressed by their government. In recent years, this body, the 
Senate, has spoken unanimously in support of the Venezuelan people's 
aspirations, and we have spoken unanimously against the Maduro regime's 
brutality.
  Today I come to the Senate to renew that support. To Leopoldo Lopez, 
all of Venezuela's political prisoners, and all in Venezuela who are 
fighting for a better life, we stand with you, and we will continue 
doing everything in our power to make sure your cause is supported by 
this Congress and by this administration.

                          ____________________